Stories of the French Revolution

Summary

About eight miles from Paris is the town of Versailles, which was but a poor little village when a great king took a fancy to it and built there a palace. His son was passionately fond of state and grandeur, and he resolved to add to the palace, room after room and gallery after gallery, until he had made it the most superb house in all the world. It is said the cost was so frightful that he never let anyone know what the sum total amounted to, but threw the accounts into the fire. This was Louis XIV., called by Frenchmen "Le grand Monarque." He reigned seventy-two years, having been a mere child when called to the throne.
To this splendid palace and to an income of thirty millions a year, did his great-grandson, Louis XV., succeed. He, too, was a child of tender years when he entered on his vast inheritance. For a time the Duke of Orleans acted as regent; but when the little king was fourteen years of age he assumed the sceptre, and in two years more he married a Polish princess.
At one time Louis was very much beloved, and got the title of "Bien Aime;" but he afterward lost his people's affection, and by the time he died he was utterly despised, if not detested. Everything seemed to be going to rack and ruin. The French armies were defeated, their colonies fell into the hands of England, their navy suffered great losses, their commerce was all but ruined. Therefore the French people felt disgraced; and many of them believed all these evils were greatly owing to the idleness and bad management of their pleasure-loving and careless king...

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Stories of the French Revolution - Walter Montgomery

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The Old King Dies

About eight miles from Paris is the town of Versailles, which was but a poor little village when a great king took a fancy to it and built there a palace. His son was passionately fond of state and grandeur, and he resolved to add to the palace, room after room and gallery after gallery, until he had made it the most superb house in all the world. It is said the cost was so frightful that he never let anyone know what the sum total amounted to, but threw the accounts into the fire. This was Louis XIV., called by Frenchmen Le grand Monarque. He reigned seventy-two years, having been a mere child when called to the throne.

To this splendid palace and to an income of thirty millions a year, did his great-grandson, Louis XV., succeed. He, too, was a child of tender years when he entered on his vast inheritance. For a time the Duke of Orleans acted as regent; but when the little king was fourteen years of age he assumed the sceptre, and in two years more he married a Polish princess.

At one time Louis was very much beloved, and got the title of Bien Aime; but he afterward lost his people’s affection, and by the time he died he was utterly despised, if not detested. Everything seemed to be going to rack and ruin. The French armies were defeated, their colonies fell into the hands of England, their navy suffered great losses, their commerce was all but ruined. Therefore the French people felt disgraced; and many of them believed all these evils were greatly owing to the idleness and bad management of their pleasure-loving and careless king.

At length, one year,—it was in the pleasant May-time,—Louis fell sick of smallpox. He was at once put to bed, and the doctors came to see him; but from the first they looked with grave anxiety on the ailing man. His three daughters—whom he had nicknamed Rag, Snip, and Pig—waited on him dutifully, though the terrible disease turned everybody sick who came near the bed. The stench was carried far into the palace; but there the princesses remained until the end came. They had a fourth sister, nicknamed Dud; but she was in a nunnery, and so could not wait upon her dying father.

So Louis, once the Well Beloved, lay dying at last. Twice before he had been near death. Once at Metz he was very, very ill, and prayers ascended in every church for his recovery; and at another time he almost perished under the knife of an assassin, named Damiens, who leaped on the carriage-step and stabbed the king in the side. But now Death had come to him in earnest, and Louis was nevermore to smell the roses in the glorious gardens of Versailles; nor was he evermore to watch the wonderful fountains play, nor to hunt in the pleasant forest. Death had called for him at last, and he must go. When he felt himself sinking into the grave, he sent for the sacrament, and it was given him by Cardinal Roche Aymon. Many ministers of religion were praying incessantly in the chapel below for the king’s recovery. While the dauphin (afterward Louis XVI.), his queen, and many of the courtiers were present at one of these services, the May skies were darkened by a sudden thunderstorm, and the rattling peals drowned the sound of the chants and prayers. The tempest rolled away, and soon after the old king breathed his last.

While he was in his death agonies, the dauphin and his wife and others were standing ready to leave Versailles at a moment’s notice. The horses were yoked to the carriages, and the postilions in their churn-boots were standing by; all were ready for an instant start. At length the dauphin and Marie Antoinette heard a noise like the sound of distant thunder; it came nearer and nearer, and very soon the door of the apartment flew open, and all the courtiers crowded in, each wishing to outstrip the other in saluting the new majesties of France.

The young couple, it is said, fell on their knees and asked God to help them to rule, for they were so young and knew not how. It was a pious deed; and we cannot but grieve as we see them, full of youth and hope and prosperity, beginning that course which so soon afterward ended in disaster and death.

It seems strange to us that Louis did not remain at Versailles and follow his grandfather to the grave. Wicked as he was, the old king might at least have had a decent funeral. As for the young king, he and his brilliant court did not remain an hour, but stepped into their carriages and were driven away at a rapid rate to Choisy. Meanwhile the dishonored body of the late monarch, now a mass of putrefying sores, was tumbled hastily into a coffin of lead, which was well supplied with spirits of wine. The coffin was then carried rapidly away by torchlight to St. Denis, where the kings of France had a burial-place. As the funeral procession passed through Paris, many were the bitter things said of him who was gone. The curious people stood in two rows to witness the dismal sight pass them at a quick trot.

Ten years of peace followed the accession of Louis XVI.; but he and his government had been meanwhile getting deeper and deeper into debt and discredit, and they were at length obliged, by sheer- want of money, to call together a parliament, called the States-General, which had not met for upward of a hundred and fifty years.

The States-General

The poor people in France were in a most miserable condition. Bread was very dear and grievance of many kinds abounded. Once, not long after the young king ascended the throne, the poor rose up, and went with a petition to Versailles. The king appeared on a balcony, and spoke to them not unkindly; but by the advice of his ministers, two of the leaders were hanged on a new gallows.

The king by and by had to reduce the expenses of his household, and Versailles became an altered place. The wolf-hounds were given up; then the bear-hounds; then the falcons; and one nobleman after another, who had a good salary, was dismissed.

A minister named Calonne, a clever man, did some service for a while in raising money, and so making the king’s path easier; but it was all moonshine, as we say. Things were really getting worse. Calonne then proposed to do a very wise thing, we think; namely, to call together the notables,—a thing which had not been done as long as the king could rule without them. These notables were peers, dignified churchmen, soldiers, lawyers, and men of mark, to the number of one hundred and thirty-seven, who sat in seven companies, each under a prince. Calonne was for taxing all,—even the upper classes, who stupidly thought they ought to be free. This was so little liked that Calonne had to resign and leave the country in haste.

After nine weeks’ chatter the notables departed each to his home, without having done much, except to pave the way for a National Assembly.

A clever Swiss banker, named Necker, had also labored, like Calonne, in the thorny path of managing the king’s money-bags; but as he, like Calonne, advised that the Clergy and Nobles should be taxed, he was dismissed, but called back again amid the plaudits of the people. Necker’s portrait was carried aloft in a procession through the streets of Paris; while a wicker figure of an archbishop who was very unpopular was burned on the Pont Neuf by a wild mob. A charge of cavalry was made, and many people killed and wounded.

No States-General had met for one hundred and seventy-four years, and it was a hard matter to know how to get them to work together. But it was at last decided they should meet, to get France out of her troubles; and so the king sent a signal through the land in the frosty January of 1789. Men were everywhere ordered to elect their members, and to draw up a list of their grievances. And of grievances there was no end. In the month of April the members elected were arriving at Versailles, hunting up lodgings, and making preparations for the opening day. But before that day arrived, a terrible event had taken place in Paris, showing the violence of the people. A certain paper manufacturer, named Reveillon, had his works in the most unruly part of Paris, named St. Antoine. Reveillon had been heard to say that a journeyman paper-maker might live well on fifteen sous a day. This seems to have roused the wrath of the rough inhabitants of St. Antoine, and they gathered with menacing looks about the manufactory. Reveillon sent for some soldiers, who cleared the street, and posted themselves therein for the night.

But on the morrow matters grew worse, and so another detachment of troops was ordered to the spot. These men could hardly with gun and bayonet reach it, so choked with lumber and crowds was the street. The soldiers fired at the mob, who were already in the building engaged on the work of destruction, and the mob replied with yells and showers of stones and tiles. As the riot went on, some of the king’s Swiss Guards, with two pieces of cannon, were sent; and when the rioters saw the steady, determined faces of the redcoats and their lighted matches, they slank away into their dens, leaving no less than four or five hundred dead men in that one street. The unfortunate paper-maker, who had lost all but his life, took refuge in the Bastille, and the dead were buried with the title of Defenders of their Country.

Twelve hundred and fourteen gentlemen were now assembled at Versailles, and each one kissed the king’s hand in the palace. It was noticed, however, that while the Nobles and Clergy had both folding doors thrown open for them, the members of the third estate, or Commons, had only one opened for them. A spacious hall had been prepared, the king taking great interest in its fitting up. There was room in it for six hundred Commoners in front, for three hundred Clergy on one side, and three hundred Nobles on the other.

On Monday, May 4, the town of Versailles was a human sea. Men clustered thick about roofs and chimneys, and every window was thronged with sight-seers, all intent on the march of the twelve hundred deputies from the Church of St. Louis, where they assembled, to the Church of Our Lady, where they were to hear a sermon. The Commons walked in black; the Nobles in embroidered velvet and plumes; the Clergy in their proper robes. After them came the king and queen and royal household. Several men afterward famous were among the Commons; as Danton, Camille, Desmoulins, and Mirabeau. There, too, went the bilious Robespierre, spectacles on nose; and there was Dr. Guillotin, who gave his name to the instrument of death. With my machine, said he, I whisk off your head in a moment, and you feel no pain. One clergyman, the Abbe Sieyes, sat among the Commons.

Next day the States-General assembled in their noble hall, and the king made a speech to them. When he finished, he put on his hat. The